A Never-Before-Seen Look at Vivian Maier’s Color Photography

The story of the late nanny slash covert photographer Vivian Maier has been told seemingly endlessly since the historian John Maloof purchased the contents of what was once her storage locker at a Chicago-based auction in 2007—and, having overcome his shock, directed and produced the Academy Award–nominated documentary he soon realized she was worthy of in 2013. It was only after the release of Finding Vivian Maier, though, that Maloof began turning his attention to the additional 700 undeveloped rolls and 40,000 Ektachrome slides that made up the records of Maier’s color photography, which had developed an increasingly mythical quality in the time that it took to sort out copyright ownership with Maier’s estate in 2016, at which point her previously unknown black and white street photography had already been exalted for years. While Maier had taken most of the latter at waist level, with her signature Rolleiflex, the photos that now make up her story’s most recent, final chapter were taken at eye level via a new 35-millimeter camera, which even occasionally pops up alongside Maier herself in some of the proto-mirror selfies that had been hiding in the undeveloped rolls. Rediscover her work again with a look inside the first definitive monograph of her color photos, Colin Westerbeck’s Vivian Maier: The Color Work, here.

Vivian Maier, Location unknown, 1960. Featured in Vivian Maier: The Color Work by Colin Westerbeck and the exhibition “Vivian Maier: The Color Work,” on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York through March 2019.

Vivian Maier, Location and date unknown (Mary, Mary.) Featured in Vivian Maier: The Color Work by Colin Westerbeck and the exhibition “Vivian Maier: The Color Work,” on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York through March 2019.

Vivian Maier, Location and date unknown (Cast). Featured in Vivian Maier: The Color Work by Colin Westerbeck and the exhibition “Vivian Maier: The Color Work,” on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York through March 2019.

Vivian Maier, New York City, 1959. Featured in Vivian Maier: The Color Work by Colin Westerbeck and the exhibition “Vivian Maier: The Color Work,” on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York through March 2019.

Vivian Maier, Location and date unknown (Man with Balloons). Featured in Vivian Maier: The Color Work by Colin Westerbeck and the exhibition “Vivian Maier: The Color Work,” on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York through March 2019.

Vivian Maier, Self-portrait, Chicago, February 1976. Featured in Vivian Maier: The Color Work by Colin Westerbeck and the exhibition “Vivian Maier: The Color Work,” on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York through March 2019.